Partially related to my previous post here, but instead of support this is more of a general question.
(tl;dr: AntiX boots fine on the aforementioned laptop, while other distros need a custom kernel argument in order to boot, why does this happen?)
While messing around and trying to get Linux to boot on my friend’s laptop, I noticed that AntiX specifically booted without needing to mess with any kernel arguments (unlike Fedora [and forks], and presumably others too [I only checked Fedora-based distros since that’s what I was trying to install]). What’s different with AntiX compared to (at least) Fedora to where Fedora has issues booting while AntiX boots perfectly fine?
I kinda want to guess that AntiX uses a different bootloader, but then why would a kernel argument be the thing that fixes Fedora?
Reading through the link chain, it seems the Western Digital drives being shipped in those laptops really should have never made it into consumers’ hands.
The kernel argument
nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=5500is being used to restrict the power state latency in order to keep the drive out of its lowest power state (because of course yet another cheaply-made device has terrible power state management).While most distros generally expect NVMe drive to not completely cease functioning while at idle (as should be expected really), AntiX is likely keeping the drive above its minimal power state. Whether this is intentional, unintentional, or from a lack of general power state management provided by the distro isn’t something I know. It would require some digging in the source tree for the distro most likely to find if there are any deliberate restrictions to power saving, especially regarding NVMe.